Lester and Geneva Osborn Collection

From 1959 to 1963 Lester and Geneva Osborn lived in Peshawar, Pakistan. Their life there was chronicled in the letters they wrote to their family in the United States.

Lester Osborn graduated from Colorado Agricultural College in 1930 with a degree in Economics and Sociology. While employed with the Extension Service he earned his master’s degree in 1953 in Extension Education from Colorado Agricultural and Mechanical College. By 1958 he was the State Supervisor for the Extension Service and was sent in 1959 to Peshawar, Pakistan as an advisor in agriculture accompanied by his wife, Geneva Andrew Osborn.

In the early 1950s Colorado State University (CSU) became involved with the University of Peshawar and established graduate-level water programs. In the fall of 1954, CSU, under the Foreign Operations Administration, signed a three-year contract, later extended, for faculty and students to learn from each other in the areas of forestry, agriculture, engineering, and home economics. When assigned to Peshawar, Osborn’s goal was to set up home economics and agriculture programs. He taught, visited villages and homes, and advised on establishing a land grant operation similar to CSU’s. The effort aimed to strengthen village councils, build roads, dig wells, construct schools, and share agricultural technology.

Lester Lewis Osborn was born October 22, 1894 in Council Bluffs, Iowa and Geneva Andrew Osborn was born in 1892 in Vallisca, Iowa. The couple married on April 21, 1918, in Boulder, Colorado and had two daughters, Betty Ruth and Eleanor Jeanne. Shortly before their planned return to the United States, Lester Osborn suffered a heart attack and died on April 13, 1963. Geneva Osborn died in 1983.